Beat it

My neighbors, Emerson and Cristian, aged 7 and 6, have a penchant for popping into my house unannounced. Well, it is not completely unannounced. Emerson will usually say, “¡Con permiso!” after he is already in the middle of my living room. Denying a kid entrance into your home is a lot harder after he is already in it.

There is much to be written about these two characters, but this post is just going to be about an incident that occurred last Friday.

Late Friday afternoon my sitemate, Lorba, and I were watching a movie. Emerson and Cristian brought over seven other kids who all wanted to play with Mapache. I had never even seen these kids before, but I told them it was fine for them to play with Mapache in the yard. About five minutes later, Emerson was in my bedroom.

“Con permiso.”

“Yes.”

“We want to take Mapache for a walk.”

“That’s fine.”

I got Mapache into his halter, attached the leash, and handed it over to Emerson. The pack of children left for the street, and my home returned to its usual tranquility. But that child-free calm ended up lasting for only less than ten minutes. The dynamic duo had managed to ditch the rest of the kids and just the two of them returned with Mapache. Once again Emerson was in my bedroom.

“Con permiso.”

“What do you want now?” (After three interruptions in the past 20 minutes, my patience was running a little thin.)

“Can we play in the yard?”

“Yes, that’s fine.”

Once again the kids went back out into the yard and once again we resumed watching our movie. But, of course, they weren’t content to just play in the yard. Within minutes they were in my room.

“Con permiso.”

“What?” (My patience was on its last thread at this point.)

“Can we watch Michael Jackson videos on your computer?”

“No. We are watching a movie.”

“But…”

Emerson was unable to get any more than that out before Lorba yelled, “Children! Outside!” and escorted them both out of the house.

I really expected them to be back in my room with another request in under ten minutes, but surprisingly we were able to watch the rest of the movie without any further interruptions. They apparently got Lorba’s message loud and clear…or not.

When I went outside to see Lorba off, I noticed my hammock lying on the porch. This hammock was set up by the volunteer who lived in this house before me and has supported the weight of countless adults, yet two skinny little boys somehow managed to rip it out of the 10-foot high support beam. That’s a challenge. They left in such a rush after tearing down the hammock that they forgot to collect their toy cars.

I was angry. No, the hammock was not broken, although it will be a bit of a hassle to borrow a ladder and a power tool to hang it back up. But I wasn’t angry about the hammock; I was angry about the fact that the kids didn’t tell me they tore it down. It’s not as if I wouldn’t know who did it.

I thought about going over to his house to discuss what happened, but I realized his parents would be infinitely angrier about the situation than I was. I didn’t want to be responsible for the misery of a child, so I decided to wait to bring up the hammock until I caught him alone in the street or away from the house.

Sunday presented that opportunity as I ran into Emerson at the Tactic soccer game.

“What happened to the hammock Emerson?”

“What?”

“The hammock. How did you and Cristian tear it down?”

“We were spinning in circles and it fell down.”

“Okay. Why didn’t you tell me what happened?”

“We thought you were going to beat us.”

So the frightened Guatemalan children ran away because they thought the angry gringa was going to beat them. I guess I can’t be upset about that.